World's oldest temple found in Turkey

[AV1611VET]

They don't date the stone. The same reasoning that applies to stone temples also applies to stone tools (that is, people don't generally mould axes out of freshly erupted lava...) They carbon-date ORGANIC remains. (In the tool context, the wooden haft of a stone axe is one example I can think of)

ETA: Oh yeah, I suppose you could have tools made of 4.4 billion years old zircon (if there was enough 4.4 byo zircon on earth). That doesn't mean that the tools would be 4.4 billion years old, though. Object =/= stuff it's made of.

Then I'll ask a second time: how did they arrive at the 11,000-year figure. (I didn't read the article, myself. Just asking a simple question. I take it it doesn't say. In other words, we're supposed to assume it from the headline.)

 

[AV1611VET]

I was wondering when AV would pop in with his "embedded age" nonsense.

Good --- you can stop wondering now. I'm here getting my usual fill of having to ask the same question two and three times --- getting evasive (or no) answers. The usual.

 

[AV1611VET]

Speaking of nonsense, I notice neither you nor your little article explaned where the dates came from, exactly! I also notice this was way up high on a hillside or mountain, maybe shortly after the flood? Your dates are wrong. This is news??

Probably up there with Cabal's 9000-year-old tree that some scientist sat and counted each tree ring or something --- with a microscope, no doubt.

 

[Naraoia]

Then I'll ask a second time: how did they arrive at the 11,000-year figure. (I didn't read the article, myself. Just asking a simple question. I take it it doesn't say. In other words, we're supposed to assume it from the headline.)

See here. There's not much information on the dating, but it's partly the similarity of the stone tools to others found at sites that could be carbon-dated to 11 000 years old, and partly some carbon dating at this site (which they don't detail, but I must assume it means that they found something organic, not just stone tools).

(Or are you puzzled about carbon dating itself? )

 

[AV1611VET]

See here. There's not much information on the dating, but it's partly the similarity of the stone tools to others found at sites that could be carbon-dated to 11 000 years old, and partly some carbon dating at this site (which they don't detail, but I must assume it means that they found something organic, not just stone tools).

(Or are you puzzled about carbon dating itself? )

I think I'll just drop it. I'm not going to spend an inordinately-long time wondering (and asking) how they dated anything (let alone some temple, for Pete's sake) beyond 6100 years.

I'm already confused, and have been for 54 years.

How on earth material that expanded out of a pixel 13.73 billion years ago shows an age of just 11,000 years is beyond me.

I'm sure the atoms in that temple are much, much older than your 11,000 years.

 

[Cabal]

Good --- you can stop wondering now. I'm here getting my usual fill of having to ask the same question two and three times --- getting evasive (or no) answers. The usual.

Which question? The one that was about a random mineral, that had no bearing on the OP, and if you'd actually bothered to read the link provided it would have answered your question?

I understand what it's like to get frustrated with evasion, AV, but come on now. There's evasion, and there's being obtuse.

Probably up there with Cabal's 9000-year-old tree that some scientist sat and counted each tree ring or something --- with a microscope, no doubt.

Guess I'll keep waiting for an answer then. Still 2 for 0, and I'm sure there are others. Please do let me know when you have anything that's a little more objective than your own personal interpretation of the Bible to back up your point of view.

I'm sure the atoms in that temple are much, much older than your 11,000 years.

And? In terms of construction date of anything, we usually don't include the age of the atoms involved. We usually save that for the relevant field, i.e cosmology.

 

[AV1611VET]

In terms of construction date of anything, we usually don't include the age of the atoms involved.

How convenient.

We usually save that for the relevant field, i.e cosmology.

Even cosmologists would blow it, in my opinion.

In the meantime, though, and getting back to the OP, we have an 11,000-year-old temple that, just by sheer coincidence, was built 11,000 years ago, right?

Do I have that pegged right?

If so, then please explain how the rocks they used were brand new, i.e. with 0-years age.

 

[Cabal]

How convenient.

Yup, I'm sure common parlance is such a pain when you're trying to redefine stuff at will.

Even cosmologists would blow it, in my opinion.

In the meantime, though, and getting back to the OP, we have an 11,000-year-old temple that, just by sheer coincidence, was built 11,000 years ago, right?

Do I have that pegged right?

If so, then please explain how the rocks they used were brand new, i.e. with 0-years age.

Ok, now you're talking like your "embedded age" idea actually means something, and I'm not going to fall for it.

In summary: Temple artefacts and nearby settlement artefacts were dated to have been constructed 11000 years ago. Now, most normal people in everyday conversation usually take the construction date of a building as year x, and describe it by saying "That building is <present day> - x years old."

So, to all intents and purposes, the archaeologists have a pretty good idea that the temple was constructed around about 11000 years ago, i.e "11000 years old." There's no "sheer coincidence" involved, and bringing up the age of the rocks is irrelevant.

As I said, please do get back to us when you can make your embedded age idea anything more than one man's subjective interpretation.

 

[AV1611VET]

So, to all intents and purposes, the archaeologists have a pretty good idea that the temple was constructed around about 11000 years ago, i.e "11000 years old."

Fair enough --- in that case, I choose not to believe it. You certainly can, if you want, but I choose not to.

 

[Cabal]

Fair enough --- in that case, I choose not to believe it. You certainly can, if you want, but I choose not to.

No disagreements there - everyone's got their own prerogative to accept or deny.

 

[Naraoia]

I think I'll just drop it. I'm not going to spend an inordinately-long time wondering (and asking) how they dated anything (let alone some temple, for Pete's sake) beyond 6100 years.

I'm already confused, and have been for 54 years.

How on earth material that expanded out of a pixel 13.73 billion years ago shows an age of just 11,000 years is beyond me.

I'm sure the atoms in that temple are much, much older than your 11,000 years.

Do you mind if I try to enlighten you anyway?

(And if you do, I'm still doing it for the lurkers, and because I enjoy explaining things)

Radioactive isotopes have been decaying ever since they exist.

(That may itself be much shorter than the age of matter, because the heavier elements like carbon, potassium or uranium didn't form when matter - or even atoms - first appeared. Heavier elements need something like the nuclear fusion going on in stars to make them from lighter ones. The heaviest need very large stars or even supernovae.)

However, radiometric dating methods don't measure the age of the isotopes themselves. They measure the time since a certain rock containing some radioisotope came into being as an object, or (in the case of [sup]14[/sup]C), the time since an organism died. How so?

Let's take potassium-40 as the first example. [sup]40[/sup]K decays to [sup]40[/sup]Ar, and it can be used to date when a rock crystallised from magma. It doesn't matter how long [sup]40[/sup]K had been in existence, or decaying, before that happened, because crystals only include K and not Ar in their structure (in this case, argon, being an inert gas, simply diffuses away while the rock is molten).

Therefore, when the rock finally solidifies, it's as if all the previous history of [sup]40[/sup]K hasn't happened. Our new rock contains only [sup]40[/sup]K, no argon. Time = 0. But now the rock is solid, so when some radioactive potassium decays, the argon can no longer escape (even though it still doesn't want to be part of the crystal structure). It accumulates. And knowing the half-life of [sup]40[/sup]K, the ratio of [sup]40[/sup]K to argon can give us a fairly good estimate of how much time has passed since the rock was formed. (Of course the accuracy of the estimate depends on the time scale involved - [sup]40[/sup]K has a half-life of 700 My IIRC, so it's pretty useless for very young rocks)

Carbon dating is a slightly different matter.

In the case of [sup]14[/sup]C, the isotope is constantly produced in the upper atmosphere by high-energy cosmic rays (which blast atoms apart, and the resulting free neutrons fuse with nitrogen to give [sup]14[/sup]C). And as any good carbon does, carbon-14 reacts with oxygen and diffuses throughout the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

While an organism lives, it keeps taking up [sup]14[/sup]C - plants directly from CO[sub]2[/sub], animals indirectly through eating plants (or plant-eaters ). So while something lives, the ratio of different carbon isotopes in its body is roughly the same as it is in the atmosphere. Once the organism dies, it rather obviously stops eating or photosynthesising, so nothing replaces the decayed carbon-14. Then either by measuring the amount of radioactivity per unit mass of carbon or measuring the ratio of [sup]14[/sup]C to stable carbon isotopes directly, you can find out how much time has passed since death. Carbon dating doesn't work on anything older than a few tens of thousands of years, since carbon-14 has a half-life of only 5730 years. After a (geologically speaking) very short time, virtually all of it is gone from any dead organic stuff.

(BTW, the Wikipedia page on radiocarbon dating seems like a good load of information.)

As you can hopefully see, it all has nothing to do with the age of the universe or matter, because (for a number of different reasons) radioisotopes in the objects dated were "set" to t = 0 at some well-defined point in the past. The history of the isotopes before that time is completely irrelevant to dating.

 

[AV1611VET]

/thread

 

[Naraoia]

AV seems scared of learning.

 

[plindboe]

AV seems scared of learning.

Seems he wants everything fed to him in baby language, otherwise he'll just ignore it. No wonder he wound up as a creationist.

Peter

 

[Ryal Kane]

Unless they tested for magic, there's no way of knowing whether or not the temple was shifted through time by magic.

I'm pretty impressed by the find though. 11,000 is pretty much the dawn of sedentary civilization.

 

[Radagast]

Wikipedia has more information. Charcoal from the lowest levels of the site has apparently been dated.

The stated date seems strange to me, though, since it implies the building was erected before the development of agriculture. The article suggests some controversy remains, although it clearly is OLD.

 

[Gracchus]

See here. There's not much information on the dating, but it's partly the similarity of the stone tools to others found at sites that could be carbon-dated to 11 000 years old, and partly some carbon dating at this site (which they don't detail, but I must assume it means that they found something organic, not just stone tools).

(Or are you puzzled about carbon dating itself? )

By that logic, we could date Av1611VET's posts to about 600 BCE.

 

[Naraoia]

By that logic, we could date Av1611VET's posts to about 600 BCE.

That took me a moment to get

 

[atomweaver]

I'm pretty impressed by the find though. 11,000 is pretty much the dawn of sedentary civilization.

Naw, sedentary civilization didn't dawn until sometime between the invention of color TV and "teh Inturwebs".

 

[Split Rock]

AV seems scared of learning.

His afraid he will burn in Hellfire for all eternity if he understands carbon-14 dating.